Portable ice/drink cooler -

[madkatz1]

Hello all,
What brand of portable cooler do you use to keep your drinks colder and your ice from melting as fast? I've heard the Extreme is good. Any comments/advice? Size of cooler?
Thanks in advance....

[tlhdoc]

I have 2 of the Coleman Extreme coolers and they do keep ice longer than a regular cooler.  The size would depend on how much stuff you are taking with you.  If you plan on the ice  lasting 5 days you need to have everything cold when you put it in the cooler and use a lot of ice.

[fritz_monroe]

I have an Igloo Ice Cube Extreme that's similar to this one.  But mine is 66 quart.  I really like it.  Keeps ice a long time, but I have not camped in 100 degree weather yet, but over the 3 day memorial day weekend trip, it was in the mid to upper 80's and the 2 gallon jugs of ice were still frozen when we got home.  I also like that it's on wheels to make it easy to go from teh house to the pup.  If interested, I found it at Walmart for $25, I believe.

[GrizzlyTaco]

Jeanie, Pop-Up Gizmos makes a solar cover for coolers also. You just tell them the brand and the numbers of quarts it hold and they will make you one. very nice products........ed

[tlhdoc]

Jeanie, Pop-Up Gizmos makes a solar cover for coolers also. You just tell them the brand and the numbers of quarts it hold and they will make you one. very nice products........ed

I have a picture of the cooler covers in my webshots album.

[rmojo]

You could try the old cloeman coolers like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Coleman-Steel-Cooler-Classic-Green-Vintage_W0QQitemZ7248450112QQcategoryZ16035QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You can find them at garage sales for less than $10 and I think they work better than the new ones, call me old school.

[volzjr]

You could try the old cloeman coolers like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Coleman-Steel-Cooler-Classic-Green-Vintage_W0QQitemZ7248450112QQcategoryZ16035QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You can find them at garage sales for less than $10 and I think they work better than the new ones, call me old school.

I would have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, because of my experience this past weekend. We hosted a graduation party, and due to the expected crowd, pressed all our coolers into service. One was an old green coleman like the one in the ebay link. We also have another old metal jacketed Coleman (It's made to either sit upright, with a tub for a block of ice, or it can lay flat and be used like a regular cooler). We also had two Extremes and several other "plain" plastic coolers. Every cooler was filled to within several inches of the top with cans or bottles of room temp beverages   , and two ten pound bags of ice was put on top of that. (Wow! I didn't plan it, but it was just like a science fair project ) About 10pm on Saturday night, I checked all the coolers to see how close we gauged the quantities needed. All the coolers were completely melted except the two Extremes. We drained the others and left the two Extremes on the deck for the kids to take from on Sunday. I checked again this morning before I left for work, and they are still mostly ice, with very little water down below. I appreciate your "old school" tradition... that's why I still have both of these old metal coolers. I bought them new over thirty years ago and they wear like iron... cosmetically they both look great. I don't think my Extremes will look this good in thirty years, but if they don't I'll have to buy new ones because they outperform the old ones many times over. It's not even close.

[rmojo]

I have not had the chance to try the Extreem yet.  I only have some other newer colemans and an igloo(newer also). I might need to upgrade then. Thanks for the input.

[6Quigs]

Recently, I was in a store that was selling Extreme coolers, so I got a chance to see one close up.
The wall thickness was almost double a normal cooler, so this was consideribly reducing the interior volume, and amount of stuff it could hold, but thicker walls means better R value, which means less heat transfer, so yes it will keep your ice frozen a lot longer than a standard cooler.

When we go camping, we bring a 2 gallon drinks cooler, filled with ice from the freezer at home. When we get to the campground, the kids make lemonade from a powder, using water from the campground. Getting a drink is from the tap on the cooler, into a cup, so the lid is not being opened every time, so the ice lasts us all weekend.
If I'm bringing beer, I put 4 beers on the shelf in the fridge in the trailer. Whenever I take out a beer from the fridge, I replace it with one from the carton. By the time I get to the 4th beer, the first one is cool enough, though most times, 4 beers a night is more than enough.

[madkatz1]

Thanks to everyone - I guess the Extreme seems to keep ice longer than others.

With the pop up gizmo solar covers... do you have to go through a lot of hassle to remove the thing before you can get inside your cooler? Or does it stay put and you can open/close the cooler normally?
 
On my last camping trip I spent a small fortune buying ice. The standard Igloo's are not adequate for hot weather.